Obama announces fresh sanctions against Russia

U.S. President Barack Obama says the United States will announce fresh sanctions against Russia on September 12, citing the Kremlin’s “actions to further destabilize Ukraine over the last month.”

The measures targeting Russia’s financial, energy, and defense sectors “will increase Russia’s political isolation as well as the economic costs to Russia, especially in areas of importance to President Putin and those close to him,” Obama said in a September 11 statement.

The broadening of the sanctions are a response in part to “the presence of heavily armed Russian forces in eastern Ukraine,” Obama said.